Matt Sheehan
9-15-10 Family Life on Education Ones success or failure can be attributed to the world they grew up in. For me my family had both positive and negative effects on my education. To get an idea of my life, I must first introduce my family members. My mother is an elementary school teacher with a drive to do things well and always keep up a good image. She got a master’s in education for teaching and special needs. My father is a banker who is good at his job and is very well rounded knowledge-wise. He went to college for psychology and therefore adapted into his banking job. I also have a sister who is 4 years the younger than me who is very social and outgoing with kids her age. As for me, I was a kid who really wanted to learn and be seen as smart in my teachers eyes. I strived for the best grades I could, which pushed me along to adapt good study habits and stay organized and on top of my work. I feel as though a lot of these skills came from my mother, either from her example or by her push. She always provided me with the tools necessary to succeed. My mom would keep me organized, telling me when to do homework and get projects done in advanced. This really helped later on in high school and college, but I always wonder if she took over more than other kid’s parents. This, I did not have enough awareness to judge at the time. Childhood home life at this time was good with little conflicts that I can remember. When I was around 5, we moved from New York to Rhode Island. I was sad to leave my friends but I was not afraid of a new life here. I don’t feel as though the move have much impact on me because I was still quite young. As for my family dynamics, there was not much prevalent struggles and much of what we needed we had. This perception may be due to the changes later on seeming much harder than my earlier life. My early childhood education went well and I was happy. As time went on and high school came around, I naturally had move away from my parents and do things my way. The lessons taught were still a part of me, and I still strived to do the best I could, all “A’s”. I was really interested in my education and couldn’t wait to take the highest level classes high school offered such as calculus and physics. To me, those classes seemed like high pedestals that I wanted to climb up to. As time went on and I was reaching my sophomore year, the idea of college and standing out took over my education. This was nearly wholly fueled by my mom, who can get very worked up over stories of how hard college acceptance is and how important it is to work hard to find the perfect place. This caused my view of classes to change from what I found to be an aspiration, to take the hardest courses and do well, to change into a grade and course name for colleges to either accept or reject. My mom really pushed me to do especially well during these last years at high school and that caused a lot of trouble for me. I felt as though I related to Cedric in “Hope in the Unseen” in the second chapter where he says how his mom just expects him to do his work, but they don’t talk much about other things. I noticed that his mom really seemed to have a drive within herself to work as hard as she can to provide for her family and instills this into Cedric, but at a cost. To me the cost was the feeling of never doing well enough, that if my mom doesn’t think I’m working enough, than there’s no way I’ll get into college! My father was pushing the other way, saying that I have amazing grades and not to worry. To me, Cedric struggled at school always wondering and doubting about college and I felt similar. High school was the time when family issues started arising and causing confusion. My parents were continuously fighting and I stopped having friends over. This changed my view of school to actually be a place of escape at times, where I could be with friends. Issues at home and constant reminders of keeping up good grades for college really burnt me out. It was a very hard few years of High school left, and by senior year I was so burnt out that I was not doing any homework at home, and scrambling to get it done at school. I still did well in school, but I was so worked up that I would not even know what day it was and would miss appointments and even my final research paper. Thankfully my teacher was understanding, but I still felt horrible that I completely forgot. That was really a moment of disbelief for me, an action that I felt was very much out of character. What is evident is the affect of family setting had on my education. There were great lessons taught to me by my parents and a sense of pride was instilled in me to achieve my goals. There were even times of struggle in which I had to fight to keep my head above water in school and life. Looking back, I can see how my struggles at home played into my education, how I acted at school and with friends, and how well I did in class. I am thankful that I kept up my positive attitude towards learning, which was an influence from my home. In the end I still did very well in high school and achieved my goals of reaching the top, deciding to go to URI, and acing those physics and calculus classes!
9-15-10
Family Life on Education
Ones success or failure can be attributed to the world they grew up in. For me my family had both positive and negative effects on my education. To get an idea of my life, I must first introduce my family members. My mother is an elementary school teacher with a drive to do things well and always keep up a good image. She got a master’s in education for teaching and special needs. My father is a banker who is good at his job and is very well rounded knowledge-wise. He went to college for psychology and therefore adapted into his banking job. I also have a sister who is 4 years the younger than me who is very social and outgoing with kids her age.
As for me, I was a kid who really wanted to learn and be seen as smart in my teachers eyes. I strived for the best grades I could, which pushed me along to adapt good study habits and stay organized and on top of my work. I feel as though a lot of these skills came from my mother, either from her example or by her push. She always provided me with the tools necessary to succeed. My mom would keep me organized, telling me when to do homework and get projects done in advanced. This really helped later on in high school and college, but I always wonder if she took over more than other kid’s parents. This, I did not have enough awareness to judge at the time.
Childhood home life at this time was good with little conflicts that I can remember. When I was around 5, we moved from New York to Rhode Island. I was sad to leave my friends but I was not afraid of a new life here. I don’t feel as though the move have much impact on me because I was still quite young. As for my family dynamics, there was not much prevalent struggles and much of what we needed we had. This perception may be due to the changes later on seeming much harder than my earlier life.
My early childhood education went well and I was happy. As time went on and high school came around, I naturally had move away from my parents and do things my way. The lessons taught were still a part of me, and I still strived to do the best I could, all “A’s”. I was really interested in my education and couldn’t wait to take the highest level classes high school offered such as calculus and physics. To me, those classes seemed like high pedestals that I wanted to climb up to.
As time went on and I was reaching my sophomore year, the idea of college and standing out took over my education. This was nearly wholly fueled by my mom, who can get very worked up over stories of how hard college acceptance is and how important it is to work hard to find the perfect place. This caused my view of classes to change from what I found to be an aspiration, to take the hardest courses and do well, to change into a grade and course name for colleges to either accept or reject. My mom really pushed me to do especially well during these last years at high school and that caused a lot of trouble for me.
I felt as though I related to Cedric in “Hope in the Unseen” in the second chapter where he says how his mom just expects him to do his work, but they don’t talk much about other things. I noticed that his mom really seemed to have a drive within herself to work as hard as she can to provide for her family and instills this into Cedric, but at a cost. To me the cost was the feeling of never doing well enough, that if my mom doesn’t think I’m working enough, than there’s no way I’ll get into college! My father was pushing the other way, saying that I have amazing grades and not to worry. To me, Cedric struggled at school always wondering and doubting about college and I felt similar.
High school was the time when family issues started arising and causing confusion. My parents were continuously fighting and I stopped having friends over. This changed my view of school to actually be a place of escape at times, where I could be with friends. Issues at home and constant reminders of keeping up good grades for college really burnt me out. It was a very hard few years of High school left, and by senior year I was so burnt out that I was not doing any homework at home, and scrambling to get it done at school. I still did well in school, but I was so worked up that I would not even know what day it was and would miss appointments and even my final research paper. Thankfully my teacher was understanding, but I still felt horrible that I completely forgot. That was really a moment of disbelief for me, an action that I felt was very much out of character.
What is evident is the affect of family setting had on my education. There were great lessons taught to me by my parents and a sense of pride was instilled in me to achieve my goals. There were even times of struggle in which I had to fight to keep my head above water in school and life. Looking back, I can see how my struggles at home played into my education, how I acted at school and with friends, and how well I did in class. I am thankful that I kept up my positive attitude towards learning, which was an influence from my home. In the end I still did very well in high school and achieved my goals of reaching the top, deciding to go to URI, and acing those physics and calculus classes!